FYI
 
 In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
 CAIR-NY                                                               
 Council on American-Islamic Relations
 New York Office
 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 246
 New York City, New York 10115
 Tel. (212) 870-2002 Fax (212) 870-2020
 
 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 5/3/2001
 
 MUSLIMS OUTRAGED OVER NYPD CLEARING DIALLO COPS
 LEADERS ALSO CONCERNED OVER FDNY HIRING McMELLON
 
 (NEW YORK, NY, 4/19/2001) - On Thursday, May 3, the New York Chapter of the 
 Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), along with that city’s 
 Majlis Ash- Shura, Imam’s Council of New York, Women in Islam, Islamic 
 Society of Fire Department Personnel, the Diallo family and their attorneys 
 will hold a news conference to express their outrage over the NYPD clearing 
 the cops who killed Amadou Diallo and the Fire Department’s decision to hire 
 one of the police officers, Edward McMellon.
 
 WHEN:     Thursday, May 3, 12:00 p.m.
 WHERE:  Fire Department Headquarters, 9 MetroTech Center, Flatbush Avenue 
 Entrance, between Johnson Place and Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
 
 Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik announced April 27 that no disciplinary 
 action will be taken against the four Police Officers who shot and killed 
 unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo in the vestibule of his Bronx 
 apartment in February 1999.
 
 Muslim leaders say this is yet another indignity in a case that has been 
 mishandled from the start. Ghazi Khankan, executive director of CAIR-NY, 
 finds it chilling that the four officers were found to be operating within 
 department guidelines. “I urge Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen not to 
 hire officer McMellon, who has already acted as a lightning rod for 
 controversy and racial tension in an already segregated department 
 consisting of only 3% blacks. Rather, he should hire immediately a Muslim 
 chaplain who will work for peace and minister to the Muslim firefighters and 
 EMS workers who selflessly serve the city everyday.” Although one chaplain 
 is in the process of retiring, the FDNY currently maintains seven chaplains 
 – two Jewish, two Protestant, and three Catholic.
 
 Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid, the Imam of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, 
 similarly commented, “We in the Muslim community are outraged that the same 
 New York City Fire Department leadership that refuses to appoint a Muslim 
 chaplain to minister to firefighters should then support the hiring of one 
 or two cops who brutally killed an innocent Muslim.”
 
 Kevin James, president of the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel, 
 added, “You have to marvel at the Fire Commissioner’s values. He wastes 
 millions of taxpayer dollars on radios that weren’t properly tested and 
 litigation to defend against hiring a Muslim chaplain who is paid scant more 
 than sixteen thousand dollars a year. Yet, he insists on hiring Ed McMellon, 
 whose liability as a walking poster boy for racial inequity in the FDNY has 
 already become apparent.”
 
 Aisha Al-Adiwiya, president of Women in Islam, and Omar Mohammedi, one of 
 the attorneys representing Saikou Diallo, addressed the police 
 commissioner’s decision to return the officers to duty and not discipline 
 them. Aisha stated, “Aside from the chilling legal implications this 
 decision will have on communities of color, it is patently immoral! One has 
 to wonder where are the good people of this country, and what does it take 
 for them to stand on the right side of justice.”
 
 Omar Mohammedi continued, “The killing of Amadou Diallo was not a mistake, 
 but the result of racial profiling. Commissioner Kerik’s decision is a 
 mistake that provides tacit approval for racial profiling. In 1998 and the 
 first quarter of 1999, 62.7% of all persons stopped by the NYPD street 
 crimes unit were black, while blacks comprise only 25.6% of the city’s 
 population.”
 
 The Vulcan Society and the FDNY African-American Heritage Society, which 
 represents black firefighters and civilians in the fire department, also do 
 not want to see officer Edward McMellon enter the fire department. “A black 
 man arrested and tried for murder, no matter what the circumstances, would 
 never be hired as a firefighter,” said Paul Washington, president of the 
 Vulcan Society. He added, “McMellon may have been acquitted, but he was not 
 found innocent.”
 
 -END- >>

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